Birks to stream Hogmanay do
Live bands, piper and much more
The Birks Cinema in Aberfeldy will be live streaming Hogmanay celebrations to help bring in the New Year.
The cinema has already seen 16,000 people tune in to hear Perth session performer Katie Whittaker on Sunday, December 20.
Organisers will be hoping for something similar for the December 31 show, which will include live bands, a piper, and more.
For the previous show, the cinema auditorium was professionally lit and wired for sound with camera angles faded and mixed to ensure the Sunday Live from the Birks broadcast was second to none.
Matthew Rogers of Perthshire Light and Sound Hire and photographer Iain Struthers were once again behind the magic in yet another pro-community effort.
Katie Whittaker - a talented performer and sessioneer based in Perth - answered an SOS call for a performer when the original act had to drop out.
Originally from Brora in the Highlands, she came to live in Perth in 2011 having enrolled to do music at Perth College.
The singer and guitarist has got an impressive repertoire of songs spanning from the 60s through to present day and across many genres.
Katie revealed it was a very last minute affair performing at the Birks.
“I saw a post on Sunday from Matthew Rogers, asking for someone to drop everything and come later that day,” said the 30 year-old musician and singer.
“But when I went out of my house in Letham, my car battery was flat.
“I was agonising how I could leg it to Aberfeldy when my friend - probably the only person who could help me - walked by with his dog.
“It was fate. He started my car and I was off to the Birks.
“I’d not met the other Birks musicians Bert Bertram and Jo Calder, but I was lucky to have Stuart Nisbet to perform alongside.
“He’s a guitar legend, he produced one of my tracks and he’s worked with Deacon Blue and the Proclaimers.
“I’ve been doing a lot of live streaming from my house and I did Rock for Lockdown on my phone and UHI Music Live recently, so I knew what I was doing.”
The online audience was impressed, sending encouraging real-time comments from across Scotland and as far off as the Netherlands during the 90 minutes of distanced, masked music from the Birks.
Now the set up has been tried and tested, the Hogmanay Live from the Birks event is being hotly anticipated as a focus for New Year cheer.
Hosted by Duncan Vincent, Stuart Nisbet and Los Supremos will play, plus recordings streamed from Katie Whittaker, Lesley Wilson, Claire Hewitt, Katie Kean and Megan Leishman and others.
It will run from around 8pm until 12.30am.
Go to https://www.givey.com/ livefromthebirkscinemahogmanay for more information.
Katie’s page on SoundCloud is at https://soundcloud.com/kburgoyne1 and she is on Facebook at Katie Louise Whittaker